The site was compromised with a local file inclusion exploit, which means the website's code allowed access to files on the server that aren't supposed to be public.

Nearly a million accounts have the password "123456". More than 100,000 have the password "password".

The non-plaintext passwords were easily cracked anyway, apparently due to some roll-your-own encryption that involved lowercasing everything, SHA1ing it and going back to bed. The longest passwords were "pussy.passwordLimitExceeded:07/1" and "gladiatoreetjaimelesexetjaimefum", with a Blackadder fan in #3 with "antidisestablishmentarianism" and a sybarite who reads XKCD in #4 with "pussypussymoneymoneyweedweed."

Hotmail was the most common email provider, followed by Yahoo and gmail. These three accounted for the vast majority of registered addresses, with AOL and Live an order of magnitude down.

Leaked Source isn't making the data set publicly available; but if they have it, others might too.
]]>

The site was compromised with a local file inclusion exploit, which means the website's code allowed access to files on the server that aren't supposed to be public.

Nearly a million accounts have the password "123456". More than 100,000 have the password "password".

The non-plaintext passwords were easily cracked anyway, apparently due to some roll-your-own encryption that involved lowercasing everything, SHA1ing it and going back to bed. The longest passwords were "pussy.passwordLimitExceeded:07/1" and "gladiatoreetjaimelesexetjaimefum", with a Blackadder fan in #3 with "antidisestablishmentarianism" and a sybarite who reads XKCD in #4 with "pussypussymoneymoneyweedweed."

Hotmail was the most common email provider, followed by Yahoo and gmail. These three accounted for the vast majority of registered addresses, with AOL and Live an order of magnitude down.

Leaked Source isn't making the data set publicly available; but if they have it, others might too.
]]>

Keyakizaka4, a Japanese pop duo, posed in Nazi-styled outfits at a 22 October concert. Sony, their label, has apologized; the youngsters themselves likely had no idea of the SS uniforms' deeper significance, reports the BBC, despite having worn them for the Halloween event.

Keyakizaka46 went on stage in Yokohama on 22 October wearing black capes and caps resembling those of SS officers
Social media users were quick to point out similarities with the uniforms of Hitler's brutal paramilitary force. The band is a sister act to the country's popular AKB48 super group. Both are produced by Japanese hit-maker Yasushi Akimoto, an executive board member of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics committee.

Yasushi Akamoto posted his own apology as well. The machine translation is dubious but among the sentences it surely got right was "I'm terribly sorry."

.
]]>

Keyakizaka4, a Japanese pop duo, posed in Nazi-styled outfits at a 22 October concert. Sony, their label, has apologized; the youngsters themselves likely had no idea of the SS uniforms' deeper significance, reports the BBC, despite having worn them for the Halloween event.

Keyakizaka46 went on stage in Yokohama on 22 October wearing black capes and caps resembling those of SS officers
Social media users were quick to point out similarities with the uniforms of Hitler's brutal paramilitary force. The band is a sister act to the country's popular AKB48 super group. Both are produced by Japanese hit-maker Yasushi Akimoto, an executive board member of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics committee.

Yasushi Akamoto posted his own apology as well. The machine translation is dubious but among the sentences it surely got right was "I'm terribly sorry."

3D Wolf Crotch Underwear makes your man "sexy and wild," but does it honor the founding principles and ideals of the Union? No, it does not. Fortunately, there is also 3D Eagle Crotch Underwear, allowing you to bring justice and the American Way with you wherever you tread.

Wear it to work, to school, or to court... or (caution: true Americans only!) to the polls, augmented only with the Stars and Stripes, draped majestically across your shoulders.

Best of all, they're only $3.95 a pair: as cheap as a drive-in movie theater hot dog, and guaranteed to contain more m—O.K. I'll get my coat.
]]>

3D Wolf Crotch Underwear makes your man "sexy and wild," but does it honor the founding principles and ideals of the Union? No, it does not. Fortunately, there is also 3D Eagle Crotch Underwear, allowing you to bring justice and the American Way with you wherever you tread.

Wear it to work, to school, or to court... or (caution: true Americans only!) to the polls, augmented only with the Stars and Stripes, draped majestically across your shoulders.

Best of all, they're only $3.95 a pair: as cheap as a drive-in movie theater hot dog, and guaranteed to contain more m—O.K. I'll get my coat.
]]>

A man attempting to take a selfie with a python was bitten by the python, reports the Reuters news agency. "It attacked me," said the victim, one of a group of people manhandling the massive snake in hopes of getting a photo with it.
(more…)

]]>

A man attempting to take a selfie with a python was bitten by the python, reports the Reuters news agency. "It attacked me," said the victim, one of a group of people manhandling the massive snake in hopes of getting a photo with it.
(more…)

We've posted about this in the past, but it was brought to my attention that the legendary exploding whale news report was rebroadcast not long ago, meaning that the best quality possible (given the age of the 8mm film) is now available for your whale-exploding pleasure.

We've posted about this in the past, but it was brought to my attention that the legendary exploding whale news report was rebroadcast not long ago, meaning that the best quality possible (given the age of the 8mm film) is now available for your whale-exploding pleasure.

The Turkish five lira note, issued in 2009, has a DNA helix. But Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar noticed that the note "shows a left-handed Z-DNA helix winding from left to right, when it should be the other way round." What Sancar doesn't know is that the monetary systems of the world are controlled by the lizard people, whose DNA is exactly like that depicted on the banknote.]]>

The Turkish five lira note, issued in 2009, has a DNA helix. But Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar noticed that the note "shows a left-handed Z-DNA helix winding from left to right, when it should be the other way round." What Sancar doesn't know is that the monetary systems of the world are controlled by the lizard people, whose DNA is exactly like that depicted on the banknote.]]>

A digital mapping company called MaxMind offers an "IP geolocation" service that provides computer users' geographical locations. When MaxMind doesn't know a user's location, it spits out a default address that is at the approximate geographical center of the continental US. It is the front yard of a farmhouse near Wichita, Kansas. For the last fourteen years, MaxMind's database has listed 600 million IP addresses at this farmhouse. As a result, the people who live there receive a non-stop barrage of harassment.

For the last decade, Taylor and her renters have been visited by all kinds of mysterious trouble. They’ve been accused of being identity thieves, spammers, scammers and fraudsters. They’ve gotten visited by FBI agents, federal marshals, IRS collectors, ambulances searching for suicidal veterans, and police officers searching for runaway children. They’ve found people scrounging around in their barn. The renters have been doxxed, their names and addresses posted on the internet by vigilantes. Once, someone left a broken toilet in the driveway as a strange, indefinite threat.

A digital mapping company called MaxMind offers an "IP geolocation" service that provides computer users' geographical locations. When MaxMind doesn't know a user's location, it spits out a default address that is at the approximate geographical center of the continental US. It is the front yard of a farmhouse near Wichita, Kansas. For the last fourteen years, MaxMind's database has listed 600 million IP addresses at this farmhouse. As a result, the people who live there receive a non-stop barrage of harassment.

For the last decade, Taylor and her renters have been visited by all kinds of mysterious trouble. They’ve been accused of being identity thieves, spammers, scammers and fraudsters. They’ve gotten visited by FBI agents, federal marshals, IRS collectors, ambulances searching for suicidal veterans, and police officers searching for runaway children. They’ve found people scrounging around in their barn. The renters have been doxxed, their names and addresses posted on the internet by vigilantes. Once, someone left a broken toilet in the driveway as a strange, indefinite threat.

Leo Polovets's angle centers on sales—yes, another VC who thinks he's a public intellectual!—but I think he's onto something with the idea of there being a threshold of competence where egregious mistakes stop being made, and that it generally takes more than two weeks but less than a month to train someone past it.]]>

Leo Polovets's angle centers on sales—yes, another VC who thinks he's a public intellectual!—but I think he's onto something with the idea of there being a threshold of competence where egregious mistakes stop being made, and that it generally takes more than two weeks but less than a month to train someone past it.]]>

This guy was showing off his cigarette lighters and matches when he accidentally started a small fire. While he was putting it out, he started an even bigger fire, which wasn't so easy to put out.]]>

https://youtu.be/c_orOT3Prwg?t=4m51s

This guy was showing off his cigarette lighters and matches when he accidentally started a small fire. While he was putting it out, he started an even bigger fire, which wasn't so easy to put out.]]>

http://boingboing.net/2015/10/06/japanese-live-streamer-acciden.html/feed33426103Be careful when spelling the word "Coconut"http://boingboing.net/2015/06/04/be-careful-when-spelling-the-w.html
http://boingboing.net/2015/06/04/be-careful-when-spelling-the-w.html#commentsThu, 04 Jun 2015 11:50:43 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=393699
This 'unfortunate typo' became a headache for a supermarket in New Zealand.

The mistake, which happened at Countdown's Meadowbank store in Auckland on Tuesday, led to a social media frenzy with a photo of the sign posted on Countdown's Facebook receiving more than 7000 likes and almost 1500 shares.

The Facebook post also inspired a stream of comments about other amusing typos spotted on signs and jokes about the misspelling.

The mistake, which happened at Countdown's Meadowbank store in Auckland on Tuesday, led to a social media frenzy with a photo of the sign posted on Countdown's Facebook receiving more than 7000 likes and almost 1500 shares.

The Facebook post also inspired a stream of comments about other amusing typos spotted on signs and jokes about the misspelling.

Does U.S. President Obama share office space with an outfit called "Edwards Snow Den"? No, he does not, which—among many similar instances of "vandalism"—is why Google Maps is mothballing its Map Maker feature.

Google's Pavithra Kanakarajan writes:

As some of you know already, we have been experiencing escalated attacks to spam Google Maps over the past few months. The most recent incident was particularly troubling and unfortunate - a strong user in our community chose to go and create a large scale prank on the Map. As a consequence, we suspended auto-approval and user moderation across the globe, till we figured out ways to add more intelligent mechanisms to prevent such incidents.

"It's going to take longer than a few days" to figure out something better than manual approval of edits, she added. [via]]]>

Does U.S. President Obama share office space with an outfit called "Edwards Snow Den"? No, he does not, which—among many similar instances of "vandalism"—is why Google Maps is mothballing its Map Maker feature.

Google's Pavithra Kanakarajan writes:

As some of you know already, we have been experiencing escalated attacks to spam Google Maps over the past few months. The most recent incident was particularly troubling and unfortunate - a strong user in our community chose to go and create a large scale prank on the Map. As a consequence, we suspended auto-approval and user moderation across the globe, till we figured out ways to add more intelligent mechanisms to prevent such incidents.

"It's going to take longer than a few days" to figure out something better than manual approval of edits, she added. [via]]]>

Investors were rattled by the early disclosure of unexpectedly low revenues, exposed before the close of trading by Selerity, a service that scours the web looking for investment information.

"We inadvertently released an early version of [Twitter's] earnings," Nasdaq admitted to the BBC. "We are investigating the root cause."

Normally, the results would be posted after the close of trading to allow for the news to be digested. But the results had been posted—through not yet officially publicized—on an investor relations page
operated by the stock exchange.

"Selerity, who provided the initial tweets with our results, informed us that earnings release was available on our Investor Relations site before the close of market," said Twitter executive Krista Bessinger. "Nasdaq hosts and manages our IR website, and we explicitly instructed them not to release our results until after the market close and only upon our specific instructions, which is consistent with prior quarters.

The poor financial results, far short of expectations, gave Twitter its second-worst trading day since it went public in 2013, reported the Wall Street Journal. By the end of the day, the stock price was about $40, down 6 percent.

On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, traders started getting a range of where the stock should open based off of buy and sell orders that were coming in while the stock was halted, said Jonathan Corpina, senior managing partner at brokerage firm Meridian Equity Partners.

“There was a lot of noise and energy,” Corpina said. “Everyone was yelling out their buy and sell orders. Everyone was asking for price indications.”

Trading resumed at 3:47 p.m. ET with the stock at $40.45. Shares closed down 18% to $42.27, the second lowest drop in the company’s short history as a public company.

Twitter is the second big tech firm to be nailed by Selerity's algorithmic newsgathering: in 2011, Microsoft posted results early to a public but unlinked web-page that was quickly exposed by the startup.

Investors were rattled by the early disclosure of unexpectedly low revenues, exposed before the close of trading by Selerity, a service that scours the web looking for investment information.

"We inadvertently released an early version of [Twitter's] earnings," Nasdaq admitted to the BBC. "We are investigating the root cause."

Normally, the results would be posted after the close of trading to allow for the news to be digested. But the results had been posted—through not yet officially publicized—on an investor relations page
operated by the stock exchange.

"Selerity, who provided the initial tweets with our results, informed us that earnings release was available on our Investor Relations site before the close of market," said Twitter executive Krista Bessinger. "Nasdaq hosts and manages our IR website, and we explicitly instructed them not to release our results until after the market close and only upon our specific instructions, which is consistent with prior quarters.

The poor financial results, far short of expectations, gave Twitter its second-worst trading day since it went public in 2013, reported the Wall Street Journal. By the end of the day, the stock price was about $40, down 6 percent.

On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, traders started getting a range of where the stock should open based off of buy and sell orders that were coming in while the stock was halted, said Jonathan Corpina, senior managing partner at brokerage firm Meridian Equity Partners.

“There was a lot of noise and energy,” Corpina said. “Everyone was yelling out their buy and sell orders. Everyone was asking for price indications.”

Trading resumed at 3:47 p.m. ET with the stock at $40.45. Shares closed down 18% to $42.27, the second lowest drop in the company’s short history as a public company.

Twitter is the second big tech firm to be nailed by Selerity's algorithmic newsgathering: in 2011, Microsoft posted results early to a public but unlinked web-page that was quickly exposed by the startup.

http://boingboing.net/2015/04/29/how-a-tweet-caused-twitters.html/feed5383586Mellow electronica video shows what happens in your computer when you go right ahead and just spill juice all over ithttp://boingboing.net/2014/07/22/mellow-electronica-video-shows.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/07/22/mellow-electronica-video-shows.html#commentsTue, 22 Jul 2014 18:41:35 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=320107

http://boingboing.net/2014/07/22/mellow-electronica-video-shows.html/feed6320107Man swept to sea in beach baptismhttp://boingboing.net/2014/04/01/man-swept-to-sea-in-beach-bapt.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/04/01/man-swept-to-sea-in-beach-bapt.html#commentsTue, 01 Apr 2014 12:10:55 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=295641swept out to sea during a baptism on a south California beach, was called off this weekend: "A wave pulled three people into the ocean about 10 a.m. off Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve and only two managed to return to shore on their own." [AP]]]>swept out to sea during a baptism on a south California beach, was called off this weekend: "A wave pulled three people into the ocean about 10 a.m. off Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve and only two managed to return to shore on their own." [AP]]]>http://boingboing.net/2014/04/01/man-swept-to-sea-in-beach-bapt.html/feed23295641Job-hunting tip of the day: don't include dick picks with resumehttp://boingboing.net/2014/04/01/job-hunting-tip-of-the-day-do.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/04/01/job-hunting-tip-of-the-day-do.html#commentsTue, 01 Apr 2014 12:06:35 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=295639sent a potential employer a photograph of his penis along with his curriculum vitae remained unemployed as of Monday, reports the Dallas Observer.]]>sent a potential employer a photograph of his penis along with his curriculum vitae remained unemployed as of Monday, reports the Dallas Observer.]]>http://boingboing.net/2014/04/01/job-hunting-tip-of-the-day-do.html/feed20295639Scottish police apologize for "tit" tweethttp://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/scottish-police-apologize-for.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/scottish-police-apologize-for.html#commentsWed, 31 Jul 2013 15:29:34 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=246800

http://boingboing.net/2013/07/31/scottish-police-apologize-for.html/feed11246800The making of Drunk Science (and why I am never making another one)http://boingboing.net/2013/07/25/the-science-of-drunk-science.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/07/25/the-science-of-drunk-science.html#commentsThu, 25 Jul 2013 21:33:36 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=245378

I've gotten a few questions about the Drunk Science video that I posted here yesterday. The two most common: "Will there be another Drunk Science?" And, "Jeezus, didn't science journalist Charles Q. Choi drink a bit too much for this?"

The answers to those questions are, respectively, "No" and "Yes". Choi is probably the best person to explain both answers, which he does in a blog post that discusses the science of an alcohol-induced blackout, and why — despite the fact that everybody involved with Drunk Science thinks the final result is pretty damn funny and generally good Internet — we won't ever be doing anything like that again.

I've gotten a few questions about the Drunk Science video that I posted here yesterday. The two most common: "Will there be another Drunk Science?" And, "Jeezus, didn't science journalist Charles Q. Choi drink a bit too much for this?"

The answers to those questions are, respectively, "No" and "Yes". Choi is probably the best person to explain both answers, which he does in a blog post that discusses the science of an alcohol-induced blackout, and why — despite the fact that everybody involved with Drunk Science thinks the final result is pretty damn funny and generally good Internet — we won't ever be doing anything like that again.

(more…)]]>http://boingboing.net/2013/07/25/the-science-of-drunk-science.html/feed38245378Spotting science mistakes in the movieshttp://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/spotting-science-mistakes-in-t.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/spotting-science-mistakes-in-t.html#respondFri, 25 Jan 2013 18:59:32 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=208356the interview I posted earlier today, SETI's Seth Shostak talked about how Hollywood has to make their science more accurate today than they did 40 years ago. That's because today's movie-watching tech makes it easier to spot flaws, and the Internet makes it easier to share them. But different people notice different kinds of flaws, in different contexts. In a post from 2010, journalist Colin Schultz writes about a study that examined the differences between the kinds of scientific movie mistakes that men noticed, and the kind that women found. Everybody saw the errors, but the context was different. ]]>the interview I posted earlier today, SETI's Seth Shostak talked about how Hollywood has to make their science more accurate today than they did 40 years ago. That's because today's movie-watching tech makes it easier to spot flaws, and the Internet makes it easier to share them. But different people notice different kinds of flaws, in different contexts. In a post from 2010, journalist Colin Schultz writes about a study that examined the differences between the kinds of scientific movie mistakes that men noticed, and the kind that women found. Everybody saw the errors, but the context was different. ]]>http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/spotting-science-mistakes-in-t.html/feed0208356A "not insignificant" defense of gleeful scientistshttp://boingboing.net/2012/11/29/a-not-insignificant-defens.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/11/29/a-not-insignificant-defens.html#commentsThu, 29 Nov 2012 20:08:33 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=197291

Just a few minutes ago, researchers with NASA's MESSENGER mission announced the publication of data that strongly suggests the poles of Mercury contain significant quantities of frozen water.

On the one hand, this is not exactly new news. The possibility of water on Mercury has been a topic of research for something like 20 years. And scientific discoveries tend to move in little mincing steps, not giant leaps, so there have been lots of previous announcements about evidence supporting the hypothesis of water of Mercury — including very similar announcements from the MESSENGER team in December 2011 and March 2012. Your life will not change in any significant way because there is frozen water on Mercury. You probably won't even make a note to tell your children where you were the day NASA announced that ice most likely existed there.

But that doesn't mean this news isn't damned exciting. And it doesn't mean that the scientists involved shouldn't be giddy about it. We are, after all, talking about a mission that sent a spacecraft into orbit around another planet and has quite likely found frozen water sitting on a landscape that is hot enough to melt lead. What's more, they think that ice is covered in places by a thin layer of some coal or tar-like organic material. That is huge news. It's going to change textbooks. And because the scientists think both the ice and the organic material got to Mercury via collisions with asteroids and comets, it's going to be an important part of our ongoing efforts to understand how life begins on planets like Earth.

All of this makes for a really nice, topical lead-in to an essay Robert Gonzalez published on iO9 today. It's totally reasonable to be frustrated by the recent whiplash of hearing that Curiosity discovered something "Earth-shattering" on Mars, only to have that announcement quickly revised to something "interesting" and/or "not insignificant". But, Gonzalez argues, it's also reasonable for scientists to look at something that is merely not insignificant from the public perspective and see it, from their own perspective, as groundbreaking. In fact, he says, we want more scientists who get excited about their work, not fewer.

Just a few minutes ago, researchers with NASA's MESSENGER mission announced the publication of data that strongly suggests the poles of Mercury contain significant quantities of frozen water.

On the one hand, this is not exactly new news. The possibility of water on Mercury has been a topic of research for something like 20 years. And scientific discoveries tend to move in little mincing steps, not giant leaps, so there have been lots of previous announcements about evidence supporting the hypothesis of water of Mercury — including very similar announcements from the MESSENGER team in December 2011 and March 2012. Your life will not change in any significant way because there is frozen water on Mercury. You probably won't even make a note to tell your children where you were the day NASA announced that ice most likely existed there.

But that doesn't mean this news isn't damned exciting. And it doesn't mean that the scientists involved shouldn't be giddy about it. We are, after all, talking about a mission that sent a spacecraft into orbit around another planet and has quite likely found frozen water sitting on a landscape that is hot enough to melt lead. What's more, they think that ice is covered in places by a thin layer of some coal or tar-like organic material. That is huge news. It's going to change textbooks. And because the scientists think both the ice and the organic material got to Mercury via collisions with asteroids and comets, it's going to be an important part of our ongoing efforts to understand how life begins on planets like Earth.

All of this makes for a really nice, topical lead-in to an essay Robert Gonzalez published on iO9 today. It's totally reasonable to be frustrated by the recent whiplash of hearing that Curiosity discovered something "Earth-shattering" on Mars, only to have that announcement quickly revised to something "interesting" and/or "not insignificant". But, Gonzalez argues, it's also reasonable for scientists to look at something that is merely not insignificant from the public perspective and see it, from their own perspective, as groundbreaking. In fact, he says, we want more scientists who get excited about their work, not fewer.

Even if you don't immediately recognize the words "prion" or "Kuru", the history has seeped into popular culture, like a horrifying fairy tale that just happens to be true. Once, there was a tribe in New Guinea that ate the dead. It wasn't the kind of fakey cannibalism you see in the movies, with hunters rushing out to spear people for sustenance. Instead, it was about respecting your elders. When a member of your family died, you ate them—you took a part of them into yourself. And that included the brain.

But over time, these people found themselves plagued with a terrible illness. Children and perfectly healthy adults, usually women, would suddenly begin to lose control of their limbs. They would jerk and shudder. Within weeks, they wouldn't be able to stand up at all. And then they died. Everybody who had those symptoms died.

Eventually, Western scientists would learn the awful truth. When the people from New Guinea ate their ancestors they were also eating a disease. It attacked their brains—riddling the tissue with holes. The New Guineans, the Fore people, called the disease kuru. In their language it meant "trembling" or "fear".

Today, we know a little bit more about the disease, kuru. We know it's not caused by a virus or a bacterium or a fungus. We know it's related to other brain-damaging diseases, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which turns healthy adults senile and kills them within a year of the onset of symptoms; scrapie, which affects sheep; and the dreaded bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- mad cow disease.

Tying all these diseases together is a scary little something called a prion. On August 16th, I attended a lecture by Jay Ingram, a Canadian journalist who has written a book about prion diseases, called Fatal Flaws. The lecture taught me a lot about prions, but it also taught me about some of the flaws inherent in trying to live-tweet a lecture as I'm listening to it. When the subject is so scary—and so confusing—even well-intentioned live tweets can go awry.

Even if you don't immediately recognize the words "prion" or "Kuru", the history has seeped into popular culture, like a horrifying fairy tale that just happens to be true. Once, there was a tribe in New Guinea that ate the dead. It wasn't the kind of fakey cannibalism you see in the movies, with hunters rushing out to spear people for sustenance. Instead, it was about respecting your elders. When a member of your family died, you ate them—you took a part of them into yourself. And that included the brain.

But over time, these people found themselves plagued with a terrible illness. Children and perfectly healthy adults, usually women, would suddenly begin to lose control of their limbs. They would jerk and shudder. Within weeks, they wouldn't be able to stand up at all. And then they died. Everybody who had those symptoms died.

Eventually, Western scientists would learn the awful truth. When the people from New Guinea ate their ancestors they were also eating a disease. It attacked their brains—riddling the tissue with holes. The New Guineans, the Fore people, called the disease kuru. In their language it meant "trembling" or "fear".

Today, we know a little bit more about the disease, kuru. We know it's not caused by a virus or a bacterium or a fungus. We know it's related to other brain-damaging diseases, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which turns healthy adults senile and kills them within a year of the onset of symptoms; scrapie, which affects sheep; and the dreaded bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- mad cow disease.

Tying all these diseases together is a scary little something called a prion. On August 16th, I attended a lecture by Jay Ingram, a Canadian journalist who has written a book about prion diseases, called Fatal Flaws. The lecture taught me a lot about prions, but it also taught me about some of the flaws inherent in trying to live-tweet a lecture as I'm listening to it. When the subject is so scary—and so confusing—even well-intentioned live tweets can go awry.

By now, many of you are probably aware that human behavior is one of the key factors behind some of the massive forest fires we've seen in recent years. The basic story goes like this: Under a natural cycle, periodic small fires sweep through forests, burning through small trees and dry brush. But if you prevent those fires from happening—as humans have done for around a century at this point—all that highly flammable stuff builds up. In the end, you're left with a giant tinderbox of a forest. The next time a fire does happen there, it's almost guaranteed to be much, much bigger and more destructive than the natural fires that forest is adapted to.

NPR has a very nice story about the science and history behind this problem, which forest fire experts call "The Smokey Bear Effect", after the cartoon Ursus the U.S. Forest Service has long used as part of its fire prevention campaign.

Its ill-advised fire prevention campaign.

And it was the experts who approved the all-out ban on fires in the Southwest. They got it wrong. That's the view of fire historian Stephen Pyne.

"The irony here is that the argument for setting these areas aside as national forests and parks was, to a large extent, to protect them from fire," Pyne says. "Instead, over time they became the major habitat for free-burning fire."

So instead of a few dozen trees per acre, the Southwestern mountains of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah are now choked with trees of all sizes, and grass and shrubs. Essentially, it's fuel.

Over the past several years, even as fewer fires have struck the Southwest, they've burned more land. The U.S. Forest Service now spends about half its budget on firefighting.

It's worth noting that this is also a great example of why it's difficult to attribute specific events to global climate change. Increasingly hot, dry summers have certainly been a factor in creating the forest fires we've seen over the last few years. The last decade has been the hottest on record, and that has consequences. But it's not the only thing going on here. Climate change doesn't happen in a vacuum. Its effects interact with the effects of other decisions we make (and other natural events that happen to be taking place). So it's not enough to say what climate change will do. In order to make accurate predictions of risk, we have to think about the bigger picture and how climate change fits into it.

By now, many of you are probably aware that human behavior is one of the key factors behind some of the massive forest fires we've seen in recent years. The basic story goes like this: Under a natural cycle, periodic small fires sweep through forests, burning through small trees and dry brush. But if you prevent those fires from happening—as humans have done for around a century at this point—all that highly flammable stuff builds up. In the end, you're left with a giant tinderbox of a forest. The next time a fire does happen there, it's almost guaranteed to be much, much bigger and more destructive than the natural fires that forest is adapted to.

NPR has a very nice story about the science and history behind this problem, which forest fire experts call "The Smokey Bear Effect", after the cartoon Ursus the U.S. Forest Service has long used as part of its fire prevention campaign.

Its ill-advised fire prevention campaign.

And it was the experts who approved the all-out ban on fires in the Southwest. They got it wrong. That's the view of fire historian Stephen Pyne.

"The irony here is that the argument for setting these areas aside as national forests and parks was, to a large extent, to protect them from fire," Pyne says. "Instead, over time they became the major habitat for free-burning fire."

So instead of a few dozen trees per acre, the Southwestern mountains of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah are now choked with trees of all sizes, and grass and shrubs. Essentially, it's fuel.

Over the past several years, even as fewer fires have struck the Southwest, they've burned more land. The U.S. Forest Service now spends about half its budget on firefighting.

It's worth noting that this is also a great example of why it's difficult to attribute specific events to global climate change. Increasingly hot, dry summers have certainly been a factor in creating the forest fires we've seen over the last few years. The last decade has been the hottest on record, and that has consequences. But it's not the only thing going on here. Climate change doesn't happen in a vacuum. Its effects interact with the effects of other decisions we make (and other natural events that happen to be taking place). So it's not enough to say what climate change will do. In order to make accurate predictions of risk, we have to think about the bigger picture and how climate change fits into it.

I'm completely fascinated by stories from the early days of electricity ... specifically, stories of experiments that went horribly (and sometimes, comically) wrong.

For me, it's a great reminder that, no matter how much of a sure-thing a technology like electricity seems in retrospect, there was always a point in history where the future was uncertain, where mistakes were made, and where even the "experts" didn't totally know what they were doing. In general, I think it's good to remind ourselves that the real history of innovation is a lot messier than high-school level textbooks make it out to be.

In this short video, retired University of Missouri engineering professor Michael Devaney tells the tale of how a group of engineering students—armed with an early-model Edison electric generator—burned their school's main academic building to the ground. At the heart of the disaster: An attempt to see how many light bulbs the generator could light at once. To paraphrase Devaney, everything was going okay until the fire reached the ROTC's supply of cannon powder.

Thanks to Robert Solorzano and The Missourian for the tip on this story!

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I'm completely fascinated by stories from the early days of electricity ... specifically, stories of experiments that went horribly (and sometimes, comically) wrong.

For me, it's a great reminder that, no matter how much of a sure-thing a technology like electricity seems in retrospect, there was always a point in history where the future was uncertain, where mistakes were made, and where even the "experts" didn't totally know what they were doing. In general, I think it's good to remind ourselves that the real history of innovation is a lot messier than high-school level textbooks make it out to be.

In this short video, retired University of Missouri engineering professor Michael Devaney tells the tale of how a group of engineering students—armed with an early-model Edison electric generator—burned their school's main academic building to the ground. At the heart of the disaster: An attempt to see how many light bulbs the generator could light at once. To paraphrase Devaney, everything was going okay until the fire reached the ROTC's supply of cannon powder.

Thanks to Robert Solorzano and The Missourian for the tip on this story!

]]>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/05/how-early-electric-experiments.html/feed13164840Car heads down subway stairshttp://boingboing.net/2012/04/24/car-heads-down-subway-stairs.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/24/car-heads-down-subway-stairs.html#commentsTue, 24 Apr 2012 15:04:39 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=156366A driver tried to drive into the Chaussee d'Antin La Fayette Metro station in Paris on Tuesday, reportedly having mistaken it for a subterranean parking garage. The driver, who gave his name as Johan, told AFP: "There's a sign saying 'Haussmann Parking' right in front (of the Metro entrance), and ... I made a mistake."

A driver tried to drive into the Chaussee d'Antin La Fayette Metro station in Paris on Tuesday, reportedly having mistaken it for a subterranean parking garage. The driver, who gave his name as Johan, told AFP: "There's a sign saying 'Haussmann Parking' right in front (of the Metro entrance), and ... I made a mistake."